GRACE PERIODS FOR OWN DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

This post is intended to highlight an interesting aspect or feature of Intellectual Property law to those who are uninitiated in the subject, and to provide IP professionals with some additional information that is useful in their practice.

The feature in question is the availability of grace periods for the filing of patent applications, after an inventor has voluntarily or inadvertently disclosed a subject matter of his invention to the public. This is in juxtaposition to situations where the subject matter was disclosed to the public, without the inventor’s consent.